23 April, 2024

In the past few weeks, The Southeast Asia Centre of Asia-Pacific Excellence has been busy working on a few projects that will allow more New Zealanders to connect with ASEAN, and for those who are connected to be more deeply engaged.

Tertiary Market Immersion Programme in in Singapore and Johor (Malaysia)

Starting next Friday, 19 April, for a week, we will have another edition of our Tertiary Market Immersion Programme, this time in Singapore and Johor (Malaysia). The participants (SMEs and senior students) will be meeting government agencies and businesses both in Singapore and Johor. Singapore and Johor have signed a MOU to have special economic arrangements, and this is likely one to watch given the already close ties between the two around the many Malaysians who travel in and out of Singapore every day as they work in Singapore. Not to add that the 17th and current Yang di-Pertuan Agong is Ibrahim Iskandar of Johor. Our partner in this expedition is Stellar SparX International.

Singapore and Malaysia Market Readiness Programme business training workshops in Palmerston North and Hawke’s Bay

Then, in May 10 and May 28, we will be having our Market Readiness Programme business training workshops in Palmerston North and Hawke’s Bay respectively. These workshops provide updates on Singapore and Malaysia and on how to analyse these markets with some tools. This is done in partnership with Business Central NZ.

May 13-16 will see three ASEAN Fellows travelling in from Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore into New Zealand to share their knowledge and establish connectivity. They will be travelling in Auckland, Palmerston North, Hawke’s Bay and Wellington and we will have activities in these cities, thanks to our partners New Zealand Institute of International Affairs | Palmerston North, ExportNZ – Wellington/Central/Hawke’s Bay New Zealand Asian Leaders. The events will be publicise soon so keep a lookout.

Global Sustainable Development Congress in Bangkok

And for now in June, I will be spearheading a big group of travellers (managers, SMEs and senior students) to Bangkok to attend the Global Sustainable Development Congress 2024 in Bangkok mid-June. I will be a panelist on the ‘Giga-scaling impact: Digital revolution for sustainable development’ (kindly invited by the The University of Auckland) and ‘Training the responsible leaders of tomorrow: Engaging and upskilling employees for a sustainable future (as invited moderator by Times Higher Education).

These initiatives by Southeast Asia Centre of Asia-Pacific Excellence will be well aligned with the current New Zealand government’s plan to be more engaged with ASEAN. We look forward to meet more like-minded people at these activities/events.

For further information about those projects, please follow the links below.